Danny Kelly: Speaking of crazy regression from formerly proven quarterbacks, the situation in Indianapolis is getting pretty crazy. Andrew Luck has played terribly this season and right or wrong, his offensive coordinator has gone to the gallows for it. Pep Hamilton is out for the Colts and the team that went to the AFC Championship last year is now just 3-5 and on a three-game skid.
A new offensive coordinator won’t help the Colts
Stephen White and Danny Kelly discuss whether or not the new play caller in Indianapolis can get Andrew Luck and the team back on track. They also preview this week’s best games.
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Do you think this was a good move for the Colts or just a symbolic firing to shake up things in what appears to be another dysfunctional front office?
Stephen White: In Indy we have one of the rarest situations ever when it comes to being able to evaluate the job an offensive coordinator has done. We had the opportunity to watch two different quarterbacks perform under his direction in the same season. People will make all the excuses they want about why Andrew Luck is playing so poorly this season and really I'm not interested in any of that. What I do know is that Matt Hasselback, who was pretty damn sick at the time, went out there and looked better against the Texans than Luck has looked pretty much all season. And, OK, granted the Texans aren't exactly world beaters on defense as a unit this year, the truth remains that everything about the operation of that Colts offense looked remarkably better than when Luck has been behind center this season.
For me that answers the question quite clearly and definitively about whether Pep Hamilton was the main reason the Colts’ offense has been faltering. He definitely was not. I know there is a wide range of opinion about Hamilton as a coordinator, but I for one admired his willingness to stick to a down hill running game even as he also wasn’t shy about dialing up chunk plays in the passing game. I love offenses that refuse to sacrifice their physicality in the run game no matter what they do throwing the football.
That’s why sacrificing Hamilton just feels so wrong to me. This is the same guy who was calling plays when we all thought Luck was playing like a sure fire future Hall Of Famer so it just seems absurd that he is the one who is shown the door because the offense hasn’t clicked much with Luck pulling the trigger this year.
If we are honest about it Luck has had issues with turnovers long before now. He appeared to get a handle on it last year, but the Patriots ended the Colts season in the playoffs on a day when Luck threw two interceptions. Now maybe he is hurt, with the punishment he has taken behind that shitty offensive line I surely would not be surprised. However, in that case then somebody, I don't know, like maybe the head coach, should sit him down and let him heal up if whatever injuries he has are causing him to consistently throw into double coverage.
I don’t really know of any non-concussion type injuries that would cause that, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the day, however, if Andrew Luck is not physically able to play a game where he doesn’t throw multiple picks to the other team then Andrew Luck should be getting treatment for those injuries rather than continuing to play. The decision to sit him for the good of himself and for the good of the team would’ve had to come from someone much higher on the food chain than Hamilton, however.
This was nothing more than shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Sit back and think about that for a minute. The Colts have already fired their offensive coordinator, a team that went to the AFC Championship game just last year, and likely will lose either the coach or GM — hell, maybe even both with their crazy ass owner — that led them to the AFC Championship game last season as well. I don't know if anybody has made the comparison yet but it really is eerily similar to the ridiculous bullshit that went down with John Harbaugh and the 49ers. And once again it seems to be all about egos. I just don't understand how these folks can't find a way to get along in a situation where they're set up to win the AFC South for the next five years at least as long as they can get Luck back on track.
I just don’t get it, man.
Anyway, what’s your take on it? Any chance the Colts see a positive effect of having someone new calling the plays and end up turning their season around?
Danny: Yeah, I don’t get it at all either. I’ve actually been a fan of Pep Hamilton and like you said, this is the guy whose offense helped (really, led) the Colts to the AFC Championship Game just last season. If you’re looking for a list of problems that Indianapolis has, I don’t think I’d put Hamilton near the top. Pep isn’t the guy making terrible decisions with the football and throwing awful picks, he’s not the guy whose bad draft picks and missed trades have hurt depth on the roster, and he’s not the guy meddling in places he shouldn’t be meddling (I’m looking at you, Ryan Grigson and Jim Irsay).
We talked about this on our podcast but I think that every consistently-great team has had four main pillars — the owner, GM, coach, and franchise quarterback — and they all must work in concert beautifully for sustained success in the NFL. Think back to almost all of the NFL dynasties or even mini-dynasties and you can see this. As you said, the Colts are going the way of the Niners and those pillars are crumbling and cracking, and it’s threatening to bring the whole roof down. Irsay is crazy, Grigson doesn’t get along with his head coach and put him in lame-duck status this year, and Luck is really struggling out there, injuries or not. It would be tough to match the Niners’ fall from grace but if there’s a team threatening to go for it this year it’s the Colts.
Now, there’s always the chance that a little shakeup is a good thing, which is how I’m sure they rationalized this decision to fire Hamilton, so with Chudzinski in there now they’ll get to see if it moves the needle. Still though, the firing looked like the Colts were making Hamilton into the scapegoat.
Week 9 games
Danny: Switching gears a little bit, I'm really looking forward to this early slate of games on Sunday. The Rams head to Minnesota to take on the Vikings, the Raiders head to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers, and the Packers head to Carolina to play the Colts. This is the best set of matchups in recent memory and each game, in my mind, will do a lot to tell us who these teams really are.
The Raiders look like maybe they're no fluke this year. They've got the fifth-ranked offense per DVOA, the 15th ranked defense, and 10th ranked special teams. Those stats suggest they are well balanced in all three phases. They can pass the hell out of the ball with Derek Carr throwing darts to Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree and Latavius Murray looks like the real deal, averaging 4.6 yards per carry this year in leading the run game. It will be a fun game seeing them take on the Steelers, who have a similar sort of attack downfield kind of style.
Big Ben will be knocking more of the rust off after looking a little shaky last week against the Bengals, and we'll start to get a better picture of if DeAngelo Williams can fit in for the injured Le'Veon Bell this year. It's a really important game for both squads — a turning point sort of game where we start to believe they're legit or start to think maybe they were pretenders. There's also some playoff implications here, and as they're two teams vying for a wildcard spot or two in the AFC, this game has the potential to be a key tie-breaker down the line.
Stephen: Well I will say that for me with the season pretty much at the halfway point I don't think many if any teams are mysteries any longer. It may have taken us this long to actually believe certain teams are as good or as bad as they actually are because we didn't foresee that for them before the season started, but most of them are who they are now. And hey, we don't expect any of these teams to go undefeated, even the mighty Patriots. So if the Panthers lose a game here or there I am still going to feel comfortable having them as my favorite to win the NFC South and projecting them to win at least one game in the playoffs. Now, if there is a major injury or something, obviously that can change.
Danny: The Packers-Panthers matchup will be a great litmus test to tell how serious of an issue Green Bay's lack of offense from last week is for them. In some ways, Carolina's defense is similar to Denver's in that they line up mostly in their base looks and just beat you with superior talent and discipline. If Aaron Rodgers and the Packers' offense falters for a second straight week, there might be a bigger concern here that the injuries they've sustained to their receiver group is a greater problem than we might've thought, and that they aren't as much of a favorite in the NFC after-all. It may raise questions of Green Bay's ability to beat a team with an elite defense, something they'll surely have to do once the playoffs roll around. On the other side, we'll get a chance to see just how legit the Panthers are — not that they still need to prove that their 7-0 record is no fluke — but it will again be a great way for Cam Newton and Carolina to assert themselves as the leading contender for the number one seed in the conference. This game has the potential to be another key tie-breaker down the line when seeding is happening.
Stephen: I won't think much less of the Panthers if they lose this one against the Packers. Especially if it's close. But even if it isn't, shit just happens sometimes and I feel like the Panthers are allowed to be off a week or two out of 17. At the same time the Packers are definitely going to be super motivated heading into that game after their loss Sunday night to the Broncos. The winner of this game is very likely to end up having the top seed in the NFC overall, and I am sure the Packers would rather be at home in the playoffs rather than on the road at any point. That's why I think you will probably see both teams give it their best shot, but regardless of who is ahead when that final horn blows both of those teams have shown themselves to be legit Superbowl contenders to me so far this season and that won't have changed based on one game.
The victory may, however, give one team an easier path to a ring when the playoffs roll around.
I'm definitely looking forward to the other two games you highlighted as well. In addition, I would say the game I'm most looking forward to watching is the Falcons against the 49ers. First of all, the 49ers let it leak out for some odd reason that they delayed benching their quarterback Colin Kaepernick because they wanted Blaine Gabbert to go against a quote unquote "lesser defense." Yeah, the Falcons' Twitter account even retweeted the quote so I would imagine that Atlanta's defense will be highly motivated going into the game Sunday. Also, I just honestly expect a train wreck of epic proportions for the 49ers offense with Gabbert at the helm, and I don't want to miss a moment of it.
When teams do silly stuff I feel like karma should kick them in the ass right away so they learn their lesson the hard way. Kaepernick hasn’t played worth a damn most of the season, without a doubt, but with what he had done in previous years and the fact this was a totally new (shitty) system, with a new (meh) offensive coordinator and a revamped (terrible) offensive line, you would think Kaep had earned more than half a season’s worth of the benefit of a doubt. Evidently not. So now we all get to point and laugh as Blaine Gabbert goes Blaine Gabbert all over himself on national TV against the Falcons.
Or at least that’s what I will be pulling for on Sunday as I dust off my Hater Of The Year Award.
Oh, one other game should be pretty interesting and that's the Saints against the Titans. Marcus Mariota is coming back the same week his head coach, Ken Whisenhunt, got fired and interim head coach Mike Mularkey has promised to do a better job of protecting Mariota. We get to see what that looks like in practice right away because lately the Saints defensive end Cam Jordan has really been getting after it. It will also be interesting to see if the Titans play any smarter than they had the first eight weeks of the season. The Saints are kinda red hot right now. They started off the season 0-3 including a loss to the Buccaneers in week two that had to sting, but they have won four of their last five and just hung half a hundred on the Giants last Sunday.
The wild card of course is the coaching change and the effect that may have on the Titans. That’s what makes the matchup intriguing for me, but I will say that if Mularky can’t get any more out of the Titans than Whiz did then this game probably won’t be very close.
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